


nothing safe is worth the drive (and i will follow you home)

by mannerspolice



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Christmas Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:52:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mannerspolice/pseuds/mannerspolice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick didn't know.  They’d had vague plans about Christmas for ages, but Nick hadn't spoken to Harry since the kiss.  Nick didn't want to think about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing safe is worth the drive (and i will follow you home)

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Christmas 2012! Thank you times a million to eloiserummaging and carswinky for the beta!
> 
> Title is from Taylor Swift's Treacherous, to which I listened while sobbing for months before finally writing this.

Nick was drunk. He was that sort of drunk when you feel a bit like shoving open the nearest window and screeching into the darkness. Which is far too drunk.

At least he had an excuse. The breakfast show was fabulous and perfect and woke him up happy during the wee hours of the morning, but it was also finally, _finally_ his holiday, and he was happy now to be well and truly sloshed with no 5:30 alarm ready to kick him down to the BBC come morning.

It wasn't even as if he was drinking alone. He had, only moments ago, somehow ended up back at his house with Harry Styles in tow. Somewhere in his drunk mind he was still quite pleased that he so often lived the dream of a twelve year old.

Though Harry was, at that moment, face down on the carpet and giggling at one of the tattoos on his wrist, so it was possible that it was not such a great dream.

“Harold. Harold what are you doing?”

“I...” God, if he didn't speed up a bit Nick was going to shake him. “... don't know.”

Nick rolled off the sofa and face-planted right into the carpet next to Harry, unable to believe the utter stupidity that was his life.

Harry mumbled into the carpet again, his brow furrowed and his hand waving an empty bottle of champagne about.

“Speak up, Harold! What are you doing?” Nick was screeching. Was he screeching? 

Harry turned his head to the side and giggled into Nick’s nose, his sleepy eyes slowly blinking closed.

“‘M just. Er. Hmmmm,” Harry whispered eloquently before casting his eyes downwards. 

Nick felt distantly panicked, but mostly drunk. Harry was close, but it was casual intoxication between friends. 

But Nick’s lips had other ideas, and he opened his eyes in horror to find his lips on Harry’s. When did that happen? Nick pulled back slowly and rolled onto his back as Harry’s eyes opened slowly.

Fuck, thought Nick. Fuck.

\----

Nick shifted his mum’s phone on his shoulder -- the _corded_ phone, did his mum live in the dark ages? -- as Harry’s voice crackled through. “My mum wants me home.”

“I know,” Nick said brightly. He didn't know. They’d had vague plans about Christmas for ages, but Nick hadn't spoken to Harry in three days. Nick hadn’t spoken to him since the kiss. Nick didn't want to think about it.

“I wish I could come.” 

“I know.” Nick knew. He knew that Harry didn't want to come.

“At least you have Aimee.”

“Yeah, and I'll be inviting the Wanted since you can't come round.”

“Heeeey.”

“Oh, be quiet. You're cutting into me time,” he said, carefully avoiding eye contact with the toaster. 

“Well, have a good Christmas.” Harry's voice was quieter than usual.

“Yeah, see you, popstar.”

\----

Nick ended the call and turned back towards the kitchen table.

“He's staying home,” said Aimee, who was painting her nails possibly the brightest shade of green Nick had ever seen.

“Yeah, I told him to slag off as we had no room due to Tom off of The Wanted kipping on the sofa.”

“Nick.” Aimee had looked up from her nails. Nick ran his fingers through his quiff as an excuse to avert his eyes and turned back to the stove.

“Aimee.”

“Nick.”

“Aimee, do you want these scrambled? I think they're scrambling whether you like it or not.”

“I asked you to make soft boiled and you put them in a frying pan?”

“Scrambled it is.”

\----

Nick poked at his long cold eggs, sighing in the glow of television. Aimee had been asleep on the opposite sofa for hours, and he couldn’t be bothered to actually pay attention to Doctor Who. Wibbly wobbly daleks, or something. 

He discarded his plate on the floor and slid down the cushions until his body was filling the entire length of the sofa, and he was certainly not thinking about a certain popstar when the doorbell rang.

Blinking open his eyes, he briefly noticed his mum smiling from the doorway before a warm weight settled into his body, and he shivered in response before his brain even registered that it was Harry who was wrapping his arms around Nick's chest. 

Throughout their friendship this kind of cuddle was not unusual, but even as Nick vowed to appear casual he could not help but wonder how it was that Harry Styles ended up on his mum's sofa in the middle of the night on Christmas. 

“I see you made it,” he grumbled, but he was too sleepy to completely hide his surge of feelings.

Harry hummed, but offered no further explanation. Instead, he stared levelly at Nick, his brow furrowed and his eyes half lidded. Nick considered several ridiculous attempts at conversation and even tried to move his apparently lead weighted arms before he finally settled on silence.

The moment hung in the air until Harry sighed. He sighed heavily, and before Nick could decide what that meant, Harry hoisted himself up so his elbows rested on either side of Nick's head. And Nick really did try to roll his eyes as Harry's met them.

But Nick could feel Harry's breath on his lips, and he couldn't quite muster sarcasm about that.

“You kissed me.” The breath from Harry's speech puffed onto Nick's face, and at the words – at the accusation – Nick felt as if his brain had suddenly reoriented left and right. He felt numb, but only because he couldn't process the opposing instincts to nod and to run away. 

A half laugh rose in his throat, a ridiculous attempt to make a joke, and suddenly he found himself thinking insanely of Aimee doing yoga breaths in orange patterned tights. He felt sad for her – she would never be able to do yoga again now that all the air from the world had apparently been sucked away into space, like God had hoovered away the atmosphere.

Nick's brain raced, and he discovered, to his horror, that he was fighting the urge to gasp for breath, his chest heaving. And through all the chaos and the weird techno brain soundtrack to his insanity, nobody had moved.

And Harry was still staring at him, lips close enough to touch.

And after all that, all Nick could do was sigh as Harry slowly, quietly leaned forward towards Nick's mouth.

Neither of them moved for a moment – the longest moment – and then Harry pulled back slightly. Nick had a split second to entertain a few options – being sick all over Harry's face or rolling frantically away across the carpet like James Bond or licking Harry's eyeball? – before Harry was back. It was the slowest that Nick had ever been kissed, and yet somehow, as Harry carefully took Nick's bottom lip between his, pulling slightly, it was over in an instant like the easiest thing in the world. 

He pulled back after hundreds of years and stared again at Nick, his brow now fully furrowed as he took in Nick's bright, wild eyes, his too flushed cheeks, his heaving chest. Nick wanted to disappear.

But Harry just smiled.

“I knew it.”

Nick swallowed to gather himself, then managed to pull together a really excellent eyeroll. 

“Knew what, you muppet? I will have you know that I am a grown man and I can resist your boy bandy charms if necessary.”

But it didn't appear as if Harry had heard him. Nick could have sworn that was the most ridiculous possible thing to say, but Harry was looking at him in disbelief, his eyes shining with emotion.

And then, despite Nick's big mouth, something snapped in the air.

Harry surged forward, his hands suddenly clinging to Nick's hair and his lips desperate against Nick's, and it was all Nick could do to keep up. He ran his hands down Harry's back and was almost thankful to feel Harry trembling. Nick entertained a final moment of complete and utter panic, holding Harry's shaking shoulders above him, before clinging to Harry's t-shirt, happily kissing him – kissing him! – for ages and ages. 

Eventually their kiss slowed and stopped, and Harry hid his uncontrollable grin in Nick's neck. Nick was willing to put up with a lot where Harry was concerned, but the idea that anyone was that happy to kiss him was a bit too much for even his impressive emotional range to handle. He scoffed and managed a mostly sincere “prick” before he noticed Aimee pretending to sleep on the other sofa, also unable to stop smiling. He pushed a giggling Harry onto the carpet below, standing indignantly.

“Alright, you fucking twats. I've about had enough of this. Who wants a turkey sandwich?”


End file.
